Latest / Sober Readings / Humility Is A Gift
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Happy Monday, everyone. Welcome back to Sober Readings. Today is the thirteenth of July. Let's begin today's episode with the serenity prayer. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. Today's reading from Daily Reflections. Humility is a gift. As long as we placed self reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a higher power was out of the question. That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God's will, was missing. And that's on page seventy two of twelve steps and twelve traditions. When I first came to AA, I wanted to find some of the elusive quality called humility. I didn't realize I was looking for humility because I thought it would help me get what I wanted, and that I would do anything for others if I thought God would somehow reward me for it. I try to remember now that the people I meet in the course of my day are as close to God as I am ever going to get while on this earth. I need to pray for knowledge of God's will today and see how my experience with hope and pain can help other people. If I can do that, I don't need to search for humility. It has found me. Today's reading from twenty four hours july thirteenth AA thought for the day. Before alcoholics come into AA, they are flying blind. But AA gives them a directed beam in the AA program. As long as they keep on this beam, the signal of sobriety keeps coming through. If they have a slip, the signal is broken. If they swing off course into drunkenness, the signal stops. Unless they regain the AA directed beam, they are in danger of crashing against the mountain peak of desire. And today's question is: Am I on the beam? The meditation for the day. Be expectant. Constantly expect better things. Believe that what God has in store for you is better than anything you ever had before. The way to grow old happily is to expect better things right up to the end of your life and even beyond that. A good life is a growing, expanding life with ever-widening horizons. An ever greater circle of friends and acquaintances, and an ever greater opportunity for usefulness. Today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may await with complete faith for the next good thing in store for me. I pray that I may always keep an expectant attitude toward life. Today's Daily Meditation from Touchstones If I were to begin life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more. And that is a quote from Jules Renard. Spiritual and emotional growth is a process of raising our awareness. Reflecting on our growth as men before this program and after, we see different levels of consciousness. Some of us might say we weren't at all conscious of what it meant to be a man by the time we entered the adult world. Now we are forming an awareness of manhood. We see ourselves more as recovering, caring, strong, vulnerable men in relationships with others. We have an increased sense that our actions make a difference in our lives as sons, fathers, husbands, lovers, and friends. Our increased understanding of ourselves makes it possible to fulfill our potentials for growth. It is not idle fantasy to imagine beginning life again because, in a sense, we have. In recovery, it seems we have begun life again, only with our eyes a little more open. Help me live this day with all of my awareness. And for today's final reading, I'm gonna read the foreword out of a book called Why Forgive, written by Johann Christoph Arnold. And the foreword is written by Steve McDonald. The stories are a bit too long to read in a daily episode of sober readings, but I might read one in a special episode, so watch out for that. So here we go with the foreword, written by Stephen McDonald from the book Why Forgive? Thirty years ago, while on duty as a plainclothes police officer in New York City, I was shot multiple times. I'm not going to tell you the details here, you'll have to read this book if you want the whole story. But I will tell you this. I spent the next year and a half in a hospital bed, and for most of that period my situation was touch and go. I came very close to dying, and when I'd pull out of those patches, I wasn't always sure if I even wanted to live. Fortunately, I received a great deal of love from family, friends, and supporters, which helped pull me through those difficult days. And six months after I was shot, something gave me a new focus and strengthened my will to live. My wife, Patty Ann, gave birth to our first child. Shortly after Connor was born, we had a press conference. I still could not talk because of my gunshot wounds, so Patty Ann spoke for both of us. She told everyone how grateful I was to be alive, and how proud I was to be a member of the NYPD. She said that as a police officer I had always wanted to help others, and that being paralyzed hadn't changed that desire. Then she announced that I had forgiven the young man who tried to murder me. Everyone seemed astounded, and ever since that day, I've had people ask me, why? Why did you forgive him? They say, I can't even get along with my sister. Or their brother or mother or dad. And they haven't really done anything to hurt me. They're just mean. So how on earth could you do such a thing? Again, I'm not going to get into the details here except to say that I needed healing badly and found out that the only way forward was with love. And I learned that one of the most beautiful expressions of love is forgiving. I know that will sound illogical or impossible to some. Others will find it downright ridiculous, but I'm talking as one who has lived through this. That's my story, but there are many more in this book. In fact, the author, who happens to be a good friend of mine, has collected about fifty. Some are about crimes like the one that changed my life. Others have to do with very different forms of violence, from backbiting to cheating on someone who trusts you to dealing with a racial slur. As you'll see by the time you're done reading, a nasty word can be just as deadly as a bullet, and the hurt can take a lifetime to get over. There's even a chapter on forgiving yourself, a huge hurdle for many people. How should you forgive? And why? I can't tell you. It's probably the hardest thing you'll ever attempt to do, but I can tell you what I've seen and experienced personally. Once you are able to let go of wrongs that have been done to you, it changes everything. It will change your relationships, your attitudes, your emotional makeup, your whole approach to living. It will give you a better life. Plus, you'll find that when you forgive, you're always a winner. You don't lose a thing. Because it's not a sign of weakness to love somebody who hurts you. It's a sign of strength. Read this book. It deals with some hard issues, head on. It might give you more than you wanted to think about. But I think it will also help you see, as it has helped me to see, that there are more stories of love and forgiveness in the world than there are of hatred and revenge. Yours could become one of them. Stephen D. McDonald. And that's from the book Why Forgive. And you might be asking, what does forgiveness have to do with sobriety? Forgiving others is especially important in sobriety because holding on to anger, resentment, and old hurts can become a serious threat to our emotional well-being and recovery. Forgiveness doesn't mean that what someone did was acceptable, nor does it require us to trust them again or allow harmful behavior back into our lives. Instead, it means choosing not to let their actions continue to control our thoughts, feelings, and peace. When I release a resentment, I create room for healing, acceptance, and spiritual growth. At the same time, sobriety asks me to forgive myself, recognizing that while I I am responsible for my past actions, I don't have to remain trapped by guilt and shame. For me, forgiving others and learning to forgive myself helps me to let go of resentment, stay connected to my higher power, and keep moving forward in sobriety one day at a time. If you're sober and have worked the twelve steps, forgiveness has probably been part of your journey. Would you be willing to share your experience on my show? Email me at soberreadingswithscott at gmail.com. I'd love to have you as a guest reader. And that's gonna do it for today's episode of Sober Readings. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, click that like button and subscribe so you don't miss the next episode and share this episode with someone you think might need it. And if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for today's readings, just go to my website, soberreadings.com and click the donate button. So again, thank you so much for listening. Stay sober, keep reading, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other, and remember, just for today, don't drink, go to a meeting, and keep coming back. Have a great day. And as my friend Larry says, best day ever.